Mix #28

The majority of this playlist was made about 13 months ago but what you gonna do. 

Mix #28

At the time of been added, new things: Kendrick, Arooj Aftab, Remi Wolf, Tony Njoku, Tanya Tagaq, Dave/Stormzy, Charlotte Day Wilson, MILYMA, Bachelor, Amen Dunes, Hildegard, Katy B, serpentwithfeet, Glowie, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Fauness, Gabriels, Cat Power, SASAMI, Viagra Boys, Paris Texas,  Alex G, Richard Dawson & Circle, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Karen Black with Cass, Silk Sonic, Wu-Lu, Tirzah, Anz

Old things: Prince, Cluster, Total Control, Art Feynman, LFO, Eryka Badu, Xenoula, Jonathan Richman, The Staple Singers, Johnny Hallyday, Smog, Actress, Buck Owens, Karen Dalton, The Mamas & The Papas, The Paradise, APRIL

Hew Locke's The Procession

It has been a busy summer with Wales (visited fforest coast), Glastonbury (Kendrick was the best but a wonderful weekend all round), Sardinia, France, Scotland (first foray into the Fringe + saw The Burryman too), Cornwall (visited Jonathan Michael Ray's exhibition at Tate St Ives), Green Man Festival and New Orleans. Last weekend I visited Hew Locke's The Procession at Tate Britain (I loved). Haven't watched many new films other than Nope (I very much liked). 

Two quarters of a triangle - exploring Yorkshire

For the second May bank holiday, we decided to head to Yorkshire for the weekend. I've not spent that much time in the north, but this isn't actually very far north. Just past the Midlands really. Anyhow...

I was most obsessed with going to The Hepworth Wakefield and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, both part of the Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle - which actually consists of 4 museums. 

We hired an airbnb just outside of Wakefield and incidentally within another triangle, the rhubarb triangle. Cute airbnb, we even had our very own rabbit roaming the garden. 

We ended up spending hours in the Hepworth, sheltering from a thunderstorm as we lost ourselves in JW Anderson's 'Disobedient Bodies' exhibition (beautifully curated). Continued onto the Yorkshire Sculpture Park which is huge, so many lovely pieces, so many we didn't get to see despite running around towards the end. 

Oh, and whilst we were in Wakefield, I couldn't resist hunting down the plaque for The Cribs, a cherished band of mine.

Check out Martin Parr's photography of the Rhubarb Triangle here.

A pitstop at OK Diner, Tickencote

Farm produce in our airbnb

The Hepworth Wakefield - nominated for Museum of the Year 2017

A cheeky cast of Hepworth's Winged Figure - the original lives at London's John Lewis

JW Anderson's Disobedient Bodies Exhbition

Ai Weiwei at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Cornelia Parker

Jaume Plensa

Zak Ové

Ursula von Rydingsvard

Jonathan Borofsky

The Cribs plaque in Wakefield

All photos my own.

Your weekend plans

Eel Pie Island - a private island on the Thames home to 26 artists studios - is having its annual Christmas open studios this weekend (It also opens once in the summer).

The public can access the island via footbridge. Twickenham is the nearest station, 12 minute walk.

Sat 6th - Sun 7th Dec 2014

10.30am-5.30pm

Bring cash! 

More information here. 

God's Own Junkyard

We went to visit God's Own Junkyard in Walthamstow before it moved out of its original premises. There was a lot of neon and a lot of (good)junk.

All photos my own

My first trip to Oslo part 3

It's Saturday and we decided to head to the what I'm guessing is the slightly touristic Kaffistova in town, a sort of canteen place. I had reindeer cakes, same had their famous 'meat cakes', both served with gravy, potatoes and a mound of mushy peas. 

Post lunch, we were heading to the Vigeland sculpture park, we decided to walk there as we hadn't seen a lot of that side of town. We walked past the Royal Palace (the king was in), through Palace Park, past the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset). We came across a flea market with lots of nice stuff, but not anything special enough to buy. 

The sculpture park is located in another larger park (Frogner), but the sculpture section takes up a large section by itself. Conceived and designed by Gustav Vigeland, the sculptures are incredible. They show so much emotion, and are also quite eerie. 

We met up with our friends, and got the tram to Sentral station - it was the first tram we'd been on since arriving in Oslo. We unfortunately missed S O H N and Angel Haze was just about finishing when we arrived on site. We watched the last song of Pissed Jeans's set, and then watched Truls - a Norwegian artist we hadn't heard of before, but had a great voice. 

Mathallen - a new food market in Oslo (which we wandered through on Wednesday) had stalls at the festival and I went fish and chips today (Sam had a chorizo in baguette), and sat down to eat whilst Unknown Mortal Orchestra played. I'm always surprised by how Ruben holds his guitar like a bag. We then went to see John Talabot and I enjoyed seeing some of the Norwegians getting a little crunk - it was Saturday after all. 

We watched the opening songs of Slayer - they looked exactly how you want them to look: axe guitars, beards and long hair - before heading over to the main stage for The Knife. The Knife were a little bizarre, three different girls sang lead vocals so I was pretty confused as to which one was Karin. I was quite up for the idea of their performance art/dance led stage show but I was less up for only hearing one song from Silent Shout, everything else was from 'Shaking the Habitual'. 

Slayer 

The Knife

We had a drink outside Dattera Til Hagen before heading in for Talabot's DJ set. The venue was very cool, almost like a house although I didn't stay inside for long. 

John Talabot DJ set

Oddly enough, by the day of our departure, I had a fair amount of kroner left so I headed into town to check out their large second hand shop Uff and some of the design shops. When I got to Sentral station, I recalled nearly all shops are shut on Sundays - doh! So I headed to the opera house roof. It was really cool, and a great design/architecture idea. We had one last lunch at the apartment and then it was time to head to the airport. We bought a cheese slice at the airport (the Norwegians invented it). As we took off, a child shouted "We're flying now" and it transpired to be the son of Commodore Norrington from Pirates of the Caribbean and the crazy lady from Green Wing.

Opera House

Fun playground at the airport

Summaries of Norwegian dress: Kankens are everywhere on all ages, not just for the hipsters. And they have a brilliant collection of waterproof jackets. 

All photos my own. 

Polymath weekend

So last weekend was slightly James Franco themed, whilst in town for an eye test (my first in about 12 years and yes, I need glasses now), I popped into his Pace Gallery exhibition 'Psycho Nacirema'. 

It was inspired by Psycho - he recreates the Bates motel - and the 20s scandal surrounding Fatty Arbuckle - which I wasn't familiar with previously. 

I found the whole exhibition a little pointless however and the excessive red paint was a little GCSE Art. 

The next day, I had tickets to see him introduce Hitchcock's Psycho at the BFI - as part of their Screen Epiphanies series. He spoke for longer than anyone else I've seen there and it was mostly him talking as opposed to a Q&A. Listening him to talk did make me think better of the exhibition slightly, he seems to be a  fan of art as a concept than as content. 

Franco explained that when Gus Van Sant remade Psycho, he wanted to re-create it frame for frame - focus on the shots opposed to the dialogue - and the film would have worked a lot better if Hollywood hadn't spent so much money on it and it remained more of an art house project than an entertainment project. Psycho was made after the critical and commercial success of Good Will Hunting, so Van Sant was allowed to do anything. I haven't seen the film myself, but I do feel that re-making a movie by frames would lend itself a lot better to a piece of art than a film (not that films aren't art, but you know what I mean!) as you're potentially not bringing enough to the table to justify a remake. 

Anyways, Hitchcock's Psycho was great!